Organisation & mission

Organisation & mission

The Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) is a leading research center and graduate school in social sciences in the Netherlands.

In the ICS the sociology departments of the universities of Groningen (RUG), Utrecht (UU), Nijmegen (RU), and University of Amsterdam (UvA) cooperate. In addition to these sociology departments, the Utrecht research program ERCOMER and the Nijmegen Institute for Social Cultural Research of the Faculty of Social Sciences (NISCO) of the Radboud University Nijmegen cooperate in the ICS. The ICS is is headed by a board and a scientific director, who represent the participating universities.

Mission

The mission of the ICS is twofold:

PhD students. To recruit the most talented PhD students and train them to become excellent independent social scientists.

Common research program. To fulfil a leading role in the development and empirical testing of theoretical and statistical models in the field of sociology and social sciences.

PhD students

Each year in spring, the ICS hires 10-12 promising PhD students (Dutch and foreign), educated in sociology, economics, or other social sciences. PhD students are located either in Groningen, Utrecht, Nijmegen or Amsterdam. Since 1986, over 200 PhD graduates have defended their theses at the ICS.

Training of PhD students takes place within a highly structured three- or four-year program in theory construction and research methods in the social sciences.

The ultimate goal of the PhD program is to meet the demand for highly qualified social researchers in universities, various levels of government, industry, trade and other service-providing organizations.

Common research program

Research by faculty, postdocs and PhD students takes place within a common research program that stresses the importance of deductive theory formation (based on the principles of structural individualism), integration of theory and empirical research, and an interdisciplinary orientation.

The ICS research program is implemented in seven so-called research clusters:

International network

The ICS attaches great value to international contacts in the fields of sociology, political sciences, economics, psychology, history, and applied mathematics. Each year a number of well-known international scientists are invited to give seminars (such as the annual ICS lecture) and a number of PhD students and postdocs visit research centers abroad. A traineeship is part of the PhD training program.